Augsburg - mein Arsch tut mir weh

Annika attempting to high 5 a total stranger

Feeling adventurous we decided to accept an invitation to join Melanie and her friend on a ride to Augsburg.  Augsburg is famous for not being München and is 65km away.  A daunting ride on a fixed wheel bicycle.  To celebrate our impending journey I decided to wear my clip-in shoes.  I haven't ridden with cleats for quite a while so it was with a little trepidation that we rolled down Belgrad Straße that morning.  We met Melanie and her friend Daniel at her place.  We did introductions, checked out each others ride then started our journey.  I think I might have made about 4 meters before I fell off, falling for the old "put your foot down on the same side of the bike that you intend to lean to not the other way round" trick.  Daniel watched my untangle myself from my bike and pick myself off the ground before enquiring as to whether I had actually ridden any sort of distance on a bicycle before.  I tried to put him at ease by confidently recounting my cycling exploits back in Australia.  He wasn't convinced.

I think he relaxed a little bit once we had reached the 40km mark and I had proved that I could easily keep pace with him on the flat even though I had only one gear.  The ride was really good.  We went from village to village, riding on quiet country roads, taking it in turns to ride along side each other and chat.  The weather was wonderful and I actually got sunburnt.  We arrived in Augsburg around 4pm after covering 73 km in less time than we had imagined.  We celebrated with a beer and a few photos.  Annika and I chose to catch the train home as we were running out of time and a little sore in the arse.  Daniel and Melanie opted to ride back to München.  Hard core.  We, of course, would have joined them but we had a dinner appointment to keep.


Dinner that night was with Berndt and Verena (our contracted friends) and our other neighbours, Daniel and Franzi.  A lovely night with lots of bbq meat, delicious salads and too much wine.  Annika introduced everyone to the Timtam straws.